GERALD T. SKIDGEL, LT, USN

Gerald Skidgel '60

Lucky Bag

GERALD THOMAS SKIDGEL

Saco, Maine

After a year of college at Bowdoin, which is in the heart of the Ivy Colleges in Maine, Jere decided to don the Navy Blue and to enter into the arms of Mother Bancroft. Being an ardent sports enthusiast, he will always be remembered for his spirit and sportsmanship which brought victory to several company and battalion teams. Although not a star man, he experienced little difficulty with academics. After his classmates mastered his New England dialect, they never seemed to tire of his tales of his beloved Maine. When he enters Navy Air, we know the Navy will have a hard worker, cool thinker, and above all, a fine gentleman.

GERALD THOMAS SKIDGEL

Saco, Maine

After a year of college at Bowdoin, which is in the heart of the Ivy Colleges in Maine, Jere decided to don the Navy Blue and to enter into the arms of Mother Bancroft. Being an ardent sports enthusiast, he will always be remembered for his spirit and sportsmanship which brought victory to several company and battalion teams. Although not a star man, he experienced little difficulty with academics. After his classmates mastered his New England dialect, they never seemed to tire of his tales of his beloved Maine. When he enters Navy Air, we know the Navy will have a hard worker, cool thinker, and above all, a fine gentleman.

Shipmate

Lt. Gerald T. Skidgel, USN, was killed on 14 Feb. when a Marine helicopter, of which he was co-pilot, crashed into the guywire of a 2060-foot television tower at Galesburg, N.D. The four crewmen were also killed. The helicopter was assigned to Patuxent Naval Air Station, Md., and was flying out of Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., on a routine training flight performing cold-weather tests. Services were held in the Chapel of the Ascension at Lexington Park, with interment in St. Andrew’s Church Cemetery.

Lt. Skidgel, who was born in Maine, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1960. Following flight training at Pensacola, he was designated a naval aviator in January 1962. He served with Helicopter Squadrons 10 and 6 at Ream Field, Fla. He was assigned to the Naval Air Test Pilot School, Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent at the time of the accident. He is survived by his widow, Jane, and three children, Stephen Pratt, Michael Folsom and Mary Katherine Skidgel, all of Lexington Park.
SHIPMATE, April 1968